Mike Parker: Knowledge is the soil that nourishes the roots of thought

By Mike Parker / Columnist

Published: Sunday, May 12, 2013 at 05:09 PM.

Years ago, students told me, “I don’t even try to remember things that I can just look up.”

Today, their 21st century counterpart asks, “Why should I remember things when I can just use Google?”

I tap my head and tell them:

“My ‘google’ works faster than yours.”

An over-reliance on technology is keeping students from developing the basis for all genuine critical thinking — a base of knowledge.

In 1956, Dr. Benjamin Bloom created a framework for analyzing thinking skills. We know his work as Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Domains. One of those domains deals with cognitive — or thinking — skills.

Under Bloom’s system, Knowledge rests as the foundation for all thinking. Knowledge leads to Comprehension. Knowledge and comprehension serve as the basis for Application and Analysis. All these skills establish the framework for Synthesis and Evaluation.

Years ago, students told me, “I don’t even try to remember things that I can just look up.”

Today, their 21st century counterpart asks, “Why should I remember things when I can just use Google?”

I tap my head and tell them:

“My ‘google’ works faster than yours.”

An over-reliance on technology is keeping students from developing the basis for all genuine critical thinking — a base of knowledge.

In 1956, Dr. Benjamin Bloom created a framework for analyzing thinking skills. We know his work as Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Domains. One of those domains deals with cognitive — or thinking — skills.

Under Bloom’s system, Knowledge rests as the foundation for all thinking. Knowledge leads to Comprehension. Knowledge and comprehension serve as the basis for Application and Analysis. All these skills establish the framework for Synthesis and Evaluation.

We need to understand that higher level of thinking cannot take place in the absence of the foundational stages. The base of the thinking pyramid is knowledge.

I generally attend the local Quiz Bowl competition. As I watch some of our top high school students compete, two things always amaze me: What these kids know … and what they do not know.

Most of the time, young people show a woeful ignorance of history. Their grasp of literature varies from topic to topic. Some have a decent handle on certain works of literature, but often the lack of knowledge of terms that govern literary analysis and interpretation. Students generally do well on math and science questions. Current events? Not so much outside of sports.

At one time in my long teaching career, nearly all my students had read certain specific pieces of literature: “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” and “Macbeth,” Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn,” and Elie Wiesel’s “Night.”

For a decade or more, a majority of students have not read any of these pieces. A technique teachers use is “accessing prior knowledge.” In short, we try to build a bridge to new information by connecting it to old information.

I have no confidence my students will be knowledgeable about historic events. I often have students who think Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” was given during the time of slavery. What’s a hundred years or so among friends?

This past semester, my ECU students read Mark Twain’s “To the Person Sitting in Darkness,” a current events essay Twain wrote for the Anti-Imperialism League and published in 1901. Students complain they do not understand the essay.

“Why?” I ask. “Is the language too tough for you? I mean, after all, the piece is in modern English.”

Slowly I lead them to realize they cannot comprehend what Twain is writing because they have no real knowledge of the events Twain addresses: the Boxer Rebellion, the Boer War and the Spanish American War, both in Cuba and in the Philippines. Words convey ideas, and ideas need a context and frame of reference.

Knowledge is the soil that nourishes the roots of thought.

As we amass knowledge, we begin to see connections. We comprehend trends, movements, cause-effect and processes. We are better able to define terms. We can combine information to create new insights, and we can do better evaluation.

At the end of this semester, one of my students placed a thank you card in her writing portfolio. I discovered the note as I checked her folder. She started her thank-you with:

“The first day of class you told us that we did not know much at all. I thought you were wrong. By the end of that class period, I realized you were right.”

Once she understood how little she knew, she wanted to learn.

Mike Parker is a columnist for The Free Press. You can reach him at mparker16@suddenlink.net or in care of this newspaper.